I have an obsession with "loops". I know, loopy. My family often teases me because whenever I go on a walk or a drive, I am happiest when I can go in one direction and somehow "loop" back home without going the same way I came. This concept is the most obvious geographically when I walk, run or drive; however, it comes up in all areas of life. I love coming back at an original idea or concept in a whole different way. It makes me happy in my classroom- finding those looping themes and concepts in the curriculum and coming at old ideas in new ways. It turns out, grad class is no different.
At the very beginning of this class, we began by analyzing the importance of action research. And now, as I consider how to present my project and discuss the results, I am reminded of those preliminary conversations. Glanz, in the text Action Research, made a salient point that action research is only effective if the results are easily understood and easily replicated and utilized by fellow teachers.
My hope at the beginning of the project was to test some strategies for informational text that would be useful to other teachers, especially those fellow Language Arts teachers who are being asked to teach informational text whereas previously they had primarily been teaching literary text.
As I've recently started teaching the unit that I would use to conduct the research, I've been thinking about how I will integrate the strategies. Part of my presentation of the project will have to be the inclusion of lesson plans that directly teach the strategies. Outlining my whole plan for teaching the strategies will make it much for useful to teachers as a whole so long as the strategies prove to be successful.
It's been nice to have the foundation in the importance of action research as I look at how to apply and present the results of my study.
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